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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30080391">Nameless, Faceless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anisoptera_Nigra/pseuds/Anisoptera_Nigra'>Anisoptera_Nigra</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Girl on Fire [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Handmaid's Tale (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:07:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,397</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30080391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anisoptera_Nigra/pseuds/Anisoptera_Nigra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-S3 finale. A wounded June is sent to Nick for protection and must reconcile with his past. Part One of a three part series that will continue with June's escape from Gilead and end with her adjustment to life in Canada.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nick Blaine/June Osborne | Offred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Girl on Fire [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213163</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nameless, Faceless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Part One of 'Girl on Fire' series.<br/>Credit to Margaret Atwood for creation of such a profoundly disturbing and powerfully resonant world in The Handmaid's tale and to Bruce Miller and the cast/crew for realising it so vividly on screen.<br/>This is the first fanfiction I have written and posted in a long time, and I have no beta, so all mistakes are mine. Thank you for reading.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pain wakes me up. It wraps around my middle like an iron band. It hurts to breathe, moving is unthinkable. I try to swallow and my throat feels scratchy, like sandpaper. My tongue is dry and furry like old leather. I let my senses come back to me gradually, one by one. The taste in my mouth is metallic. The surface underneath me is soft – a mattress or bed. The room I am in is quiet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I open my eyes slowly, hesitantly. They feel dry and sticky, the lids scraping over their surface, but at least I still have two, which is something. The light is dim in the room and it takes a moment to acclimatise to it. The space around me is unfamiliar, low ceiling, brown canvas walls, little other furniture – some kind of tent, maybe, but where?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A shadow moves in the corner and I gasp, sending a shockwave of pain into my abdomen. <em>Who’s there?</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The shadow moves closer and I hold my breath, squinting towards it. My vision is still blurry, it takes a moment for shapes to coalesce into familiar features. Nick. <em>What the fuck?</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good, you’re awake,” he says. “I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up before I had to leave.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What happened? Where am I?” I try to ask these questions but my voice comes out little more than a reedy whisper.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I feel weak, helpless. I <em>am</em> helpless. I am helpless unless he helps me. Again. There is a flicker of something other than pain. I think is it anger. Maybe it is love.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asks. He looks awkward as he stands by my bed, like he doesn’t want to be there but he can’t help it, like he used to look in the beginning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>What’s the last thing I remember?</em> Trees, I think. Pale dawn sky peeking through them. An airplane overhead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>An airplane! The children!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did they get out?” I croak, my voice slightly stronger now with effort.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He shakes his head, smiles a little half smile in spite of himself. “Yes, they got out.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I let out a shaky exhalation, tears pricking my eyes and running down my cheeks. I want to laugh from sheer joy, but it hurts too much.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re crazy, you know that don’t you?” He looks pissed off, but I know him better than that. I know deep down he is proud.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where am I?” I ask again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Burns Harbor Field Hospital, on the edge of Lake Michigan. You were shot. You needed surgery.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I touch my stomach lightly where the pain is coming from. There is a thick white bandage there. In the back of my hand is a drip.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How did I get here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Lawrence put you in the back of a truck. Nearly a thousand miles cross country in a lorry load of canned goods. Christ,” his voice catches and the usual blank mask on his face slips. “When the driver opened the doors I thought you were dead.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How did he know?” I ask suspiciously. “To send me to you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Nick shrugs. “Beth.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I feel a fool again. All the secrets I think I hide, and really I am as transparent as glass.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We don’t have much time,” Nick says. “They’ll be in here soon. There are things you need to know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“OK.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“June Osborne was shot aiding the escape of 86 children from Gilead. She got on the plane with them but died of her injuries before landing in Canada.” He pauses, watching my face for my reaction. I simply nod.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We’re trying to get a message to the Canadians to confirm this,” he continues. “Things are pretty hot right now in Boston. We’re hoping they’ll cool down a bit if they think you’re dead.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I shake my head. “It’s not enough for me to be dead. They’ll want to kill me themselves.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not just kill you, make an example of you, make you suffer. They might even come after people you care about.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I gasp, panic clutching my insides. “Hannah!” I pull at the blankets covering me, I want to get out of this bed, do something, go to her. But the pain is intense, and I don’t even know where she is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Calm down,” Nick admonishes. “As long as June is dead Hannah is safe – there’s nothing to be gained by hurting her.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I take steadying breaths, trying to calm the flow of tears running down my cheeks. “So, if June is dead, who am I?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His hands are on the side of my bed, gripping and twisting the edge of the sheets. His fingers are close to mine, but not touching. He looks down at them, eyes focused on the gap between us.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Jessica Blaine,” he replies tonelessly. “A Handmaid. You were shot trying to run away from your Commander’s house in Indianapolis. Lawrence is going to forge the paperwork to make it look real. When they run the number on your tag that’s what will come back.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Jessica <em>Blaine</em>?” I turn the inflection on the surname into a question.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She was my cousin,” Nick explains, sounding miserable. “She had a kid right out of high school. A boy, Aaron, he’d be about 12 now. The dad didn’t stick around. They rounded her up during the purges, took her kid away, forced her into being a Handmaid. Lawrence thought it would look less suspicious you showing up on my doorstep if we were related somehow.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She’s a real person? Or Lawrence made her up?” It seems important to keep the lies and truth straight in my head.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She was posted to Tennessee,” he doesn’t answer the question directly. “A farm in the middle of nowhere. She was seven months pregnant when she just disappeared.” He looks up at me, pain shadowing his dark eyes. “Maybe she got out.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tennessee, bible belt, heart of Gilead, nowhere near a safe border. <em>Yeah, right, she got out. </em></p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>“Fuck Nick,” I scowl at him, suddenly angry again. “You did this. You helped make it happen. Serena told me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He flinches and I know it is true. This cuts deeper than I thought it would. There is a small part of me that still hoped Serena was lying out of spite, that still wanted to believe in Nick the Good Guy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have to go.” He closes off, deflects, the same way he always does. “I’ll be missed back at the base.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fine, leave, run away and don’t talk to me,” I hiss. “Why change now?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Just tell them you’re Jessica and you’ll be safe.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why should I trust you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t answer. It is a stupid question. I’ll trust him because I have no other choice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he says then turns to leave.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After he is gone I realise he didn’t touch me once the whole time he was here. Not even a brush of fingers. Not a caress of hand on arm, or thumb trailing across cheek. We have been apart for months and he doesn’t even try to kiss me hello.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For some reason this upsets me more than anything else.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is another two days before I see Nick again. In that time my world is this room. This room and the constant pain. The doctor visits once a day. He is perfunctory and impossible to read. He checks the wound, looks over my vital signs on the chart then leaves. He doesn’t speak directly to me, never even looks at my face. Perhaps he is not allowed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>An Aunt is there almost all the day. She is the antithesis of Aunt Lydia, tall and bony, grey haired. She doesn’t pretend to care about me. She doesn’t talk about God or duty or how lucky I am to be chosen to serve. She doesn’t use scripture to justify torture. She looks at me like I’m a thorn in her side, an unnecessary piece of trouble on her plate, and I look at her the same way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The first thing she says is: “You’re lucky you didn’t damage your ability to have children or it would have been straight to the colonies for you.” Then she proceeds to order me out of the bed into a chair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The pain is immense, like red hot pokers burning from the inside. Apparently, pain relief is a luxury I am not allowed because I brought all this upon myself by trying to run away. Aunt Beatrice has been put in charge of my recovery and she is merciless at getting me out of bed and moving.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tears run down my cheeks and sweat soaks through my hospital gown as I stumble in circles around the tent. The pain becomes so bad at one point I think I pass out, coming to curled in a ball on the floor. Her sharp boot kicks me in the back until I drag myself to my hands and knees and crawl the rest of the way back to bed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I get ten minutes rest every hour. At night I sleep fitfully, exhausted but woken repeatedly by the constant pain. In the day, at rest, I can hardly keep my eyes open.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Early mobilization!” she barks when my legs sway and my vision starts to grey at the edges. “That’s what the doctor said. The sooner you’re up and about, the sooner you’re out of here!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As I don’t know what ‘out of here’ involves, I can hardly share her enthusiasm for it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the time Nick arrives I already hate him for staying away so long. He wordlessly passes a package to Aunt Beatrice and she examines it closely with pursed lips, pausing only to scowl at me disapprovingly before leaving the room. To me he hands a blister pack of small white tablets.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oxycodone,” he explains. “They told me you were in a lot of pain.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I snatch the pills up, popping two immediately, shameless in my haste.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sorry I couldn’t be here sooner,” he offers. “We were on active manoeuvres.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am about to snap at him when I notice a bandage on his neck. Above it his jaw line and cheek are peppered with small scratches. I lift my hand up to touch, but he steps backwards out of my reach.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“There was an explosion,” he shrugs. “It’s nothing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You could have been killed,” I accuse. Panic bubbles in my chest. He is fighting in a war. What will I do if he is killed? I have got used to having people around me, a support network of friends and allies. People on my side – Rita, Beth, Janine, Alma, Commander Lawrence to an extent – almost like a family. Now I am alone again. They have even taken away June, I cannot fall back on myself for company. I have only him to rely on, my only connection in a new and frightening world. How dare he risk dying when I need him so much?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I could get killed any day,” he reminds me. “And so could you. You’re going to be discharged soon and they’ll take you to the nearest Red Centre. I can’t protect you there. They’ll ask more questions, there’s more risk you’ll be found out.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I say nothing in reply, what is there to say?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can get you out,” he offers. “We made significant gains in the fighting yesterday. A lot of women were captured. Some of them will become Handmaids. There’s a plan to transfer them to the Red Centre day after tomorrow. The transfer van will be ambushed by rebels and the women rescued. There’s a boat waiting to take them to Canada. I can get you on that van.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I don’t ask him how he knows any of this. It doesn’t matter because I know my answer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, I can’t leave without Hannah.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks exasperated. “Give it up June, you can’t rescue Hannah. You can’t even get near her, it’s too dangerous.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I meet his gaze determinedly, jutting out my chin. “Then she’ll know I died trying.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Please, June,” he begs. “Just save yourself. I’ll get Hannah. Leave it to me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I shake my head. “How can I believe that? How can I believe you’ll save Hannah when you won’t even help your own daughter?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He clenches his fists by his side, angry like this it is easy to believe how dangerous he is. “That’s not fair.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not fair?” I hiss back. “Not fair is having two children taken away from you. Not fair is being held prisoner and raped on a regular basis. Not fair is finding out the one person you trusted to help has been lying to you the whole time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I never lied – ” he protests, but I am not listening, I am on a furious tirade.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you know I had to hear it from that Swiss woman? Do you know she felt sorry for me? As if it’s not bad enough they rape me and steal my babies, now it turns out my boyfriend’s a terrorist!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is that what you think I am?” he asks softly, and I’m not sure if he means ‘terrorist’ or ‘boyfriend’.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t think anything about you, Nick,” I reply spitefully. “Because I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you, because you won’t tell me anything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His eyes are dark and his jaw twitches. “Maybe there isn’t anything good to tell.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That doesn’t mean I don’t need to know. Fuck, Nick, we have a <em>child</em> together. You don’t think she deserves to know who her father is?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Her father is Luke,” he replies, the most defeated I have ever heard him. “I’m not an idiot June. I know if you get out of here with Hannah then you’ll go back to him. He’s your husband, he’s a good guy, he’s bringing up Nichole. You should be a family again. I’m not good enough for you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I sigh deeply. “I told Luke he should move on. That you were Nichole’s father and I loved you. So, if you’re not good enough for me then you need to get <em>fucking</em> better, because you’re all I’ve got left now.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks up from the floor, his eyes full of disbelief tinged with hope. I look steadily back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Okay,” he nods. “Okay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m waiting,” I cock an eyebrow at him. “Talk, soldier boy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His lips twitch, almost smiling. “Not now, we don’t have time. I only bought half an hour from Aunt Beatrice. I’ll come back tomorrow night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Save some oxy until then,” he throws over his shoulder as he leaves. “You’ll need to be able to walk.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s late when he comes back the following day. Aunt Beatrice has already left for the night. I shuffle around the room slowly while I wait, afraid to stay still or I will seize up with the pain. When he arrives he is carrying a small duffle bag.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Put these on,” he says taking items from the bag. “It’s cold outside.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There is a heavy black jumper, woollen socks and slip-on leather shoes. It hurts too much to bend down, so Nick has to put the socks on for me. I slip into the shoes, they are slightly too big, but better than bare feet. Finally, he takes off his greatcoat and wraps it around my shoulders.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Come on, let’s go.” He drops one hand to the small of my back and guides me out the room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Outside a canvas corridor joins other tents and pre-fab buildings. There is no one around. We turn left and walk fifty yards or so before ducking out of an exit into the cold night air. A guard with a machine gun is waiting outside and I freeze in terror.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s okay,” Nick whispers in my ear. His hand slides around my waist and he draws me closer to him, away from the guard, who barely looks up as we sneak past.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My men are on duty tonight,” he tells me, leading me towards a vehicle parked nearby. “No one will miss you until the morning.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He opens the car door and I need his help to get inside, the pain of the movement bringing tears to my eyes. He leans over to strap me in, touching his forehead briefly to mine as he leans back. I am breathing harder now, and it has nothing to do with the pain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where are we going?” I ask as he climbs into the car himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My place.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is a short drive. I press my face against the window as we go, trying to get a sense of where we are. There are no lights outside, but if I squint I can make out shadowy industrial buildings looming in the darkness. The other side of the buildings is a dark, flat emptiness wreathed slightly with mist. I guess this is probably Lake Michigan. I try to imagine it on a moonlit night, reflections on the surface glowing silver. This is more comforting than the black void that exists there now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We reach a checkpoint and I shrink into my seat nervously, but we are waved straight through. Maybe Nick is trying to impress me by showing what a big man on campus he is. Maybe he is proving what he offered yesterday is true – he could get me out if I let him. And if he can get me out, maybe he can get Hannah out too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We are in a wooded area now, small cabins peep between the trees. He stops by one, helps me out of the car, up a couple of steps and in through the door. It is like his room above the garage all over again. Basic, utilitarian, the familiar photo of the boys by the lake the only personal touch. There is a small kitchenette at the front of the room, a wooden table with four chairs in the middle, then a bed in the far corner. A single door is ajar, leading to a tiny bathroom.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I thought Commanders got better digs than this,” I quip.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not during a war,” he replies. “At least I don’t have to share.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He pulls out a chair for me at the table and I lower myself down slowly. While I am getting comfortable he walks to the fridge, pours a glass of water and sets it down in front of me along with some more tablets.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Acetaminophen,” he explains. “Ironically harder to get hold of than the oxycodone.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I take two gratefully. “Got anything stronger to wash them down with?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks directly at me, his expression closed off, even more unreadable than usual. “I don’t drink.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I realise this is true, but that I have never really thought about it before. In Gilead alcohol is scarce, and he was a driver, at Waterford’s beck and call to ferry him around day or night, so getting drunk wasn’t exactly on the cards. There is something more here than just that though, something I am missing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“See,” I say quietly. “I'm learning new stuff about you already.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sits down opposite me, head bowed towards the tabletop, nursing his own glass of water. I let the silence stretch, willing him to come to me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“They wanted me to take a DNA test,” he says eventually. I watch him carefully, saying nothing, letting my eyes ask the question.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The Swiss,” he elaborates. “They said I should take a DNA test to prove I was Nichole’s father. A show of faith they called it. They said it would help persuade the Canadians to keep Nichole there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So, why didn’t you do it?” I ask coldly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Because it was entrapment,” he replies defensively. “You know what information like that would do to me here. Proof I slept with a Handmaid, fathered a child with her – that would be lethal. You’ve been to Particicutions.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s not why they wanted it,” I protest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Really?” he is incredulous. “You don’t think that would be a good thing for them – the Canadians, the Americans – having an operative inside Gilead under their control. They could have hung it over my head forever, made me do anything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re paranoid,” I scoff.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s how they get you!” he fires back and I have rarely seen him this worked up before. “They get you to do little things, things you don’t even realise are dangerous, then they hold them over you so you can’t say no to the next thing, and the next, until you’re in so deep there’s no way out!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Understanding slowly dawns. “That’s what happened to you, isn’t it? Before?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He gets up from the table, paces around a bit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not like you June. Things weren’t better for me Before. I didn’t have a rosy life with a happy little family. No job, no money, no education, no prospects – that’s what I had.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Don’t make excuses for yourself,” I snap at him angrily. “There were plenty of other people like that who didn’t do what you did.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Commander Pryce,” Nick continues to explain dully, now he has started he doesn’t seem able to stop, he has to get it all out. “He worked in a recruitment centre, said I should come to some meetings with him, that there might be work in it for me. I needed the money, so I went.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“They asked me to run errands for them. It was easy work. Ferry some men in suits around the city while they talked about their plans to build a better world. I thought it was all pie-in-the-sky BS but that didn’t matter, all I had to do was keep my mouth shut and keep cashing the paychecks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sometimes they’d ask me to pick up their wives, their dry cleaning. Sometimes they’d give me stuff to deliver places, fetch a package from somewhere, take it somewhere else. I never asked too many questions. One day there was an explosion in a building I’d made a delivery to – C4, that’s what was in the package. Three people died.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Pryce, he was sympathetic: ‘We’re trying to change the future, son,’ he said. ‘We want to make the world cleaner, Godlier, and there’s always going to be people who object to that, so we need to fight them. You’re part of that fight now’.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I shake my head. “You still could have got out then.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Nick looks hopeless. “I was afraid. They told me I’d been delivering explosive and weapons all over the city, that my fingerprints would be on them, that it was my hands they had passed through, not theirs. They said it was all for the greater good, that they needed brave men like me to do the right thing. That one man’s terrorist was another man’s freedom fighter.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I snort with laughter, making a sharp spike of pain spasm through my middle. “Some freedom.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Nick shrugs. “Yeah, well, I guess the joke’s on me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks smaller, weaker, diminished by his confession. I remember Commander Lawrence stood by his wife’s grave, bereft in the knowledge that the world he created destroyed the one person he loved most. I have witnessed greater sins than Nick’s and forgiven them. But first I must know everything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“When they made the law to stop women working, the men with machine guns who stood in offices ordering women home – were you one of them?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He nods. “Sometimes the women would refuse to go. Sometimes they would scream and fight. Then we were supposed to hit them, drag them out if necessary. I wasn’t very good at that, so they sent me to fight rebels in Kentucky and Florida – I did better there, well enough to be promoted. Pryce made me an Eye, sent me to drive for Waterford.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I bite my lip. This is the big one, the question that has haunted me since the failed meeting with the Swiss all those months ago, since they tore down the idea of Nick in my mind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The attacks on the Capitol, the ones that changed everything – were you there?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes,” he says and my head swims. I remember the day Hannah was ill, watching the attacks on TV with Luke, the horror and the disbelief. I remember thinking, <em>who could do such a thing?</em> Years later I have my answer – an ordinary man, not a monster. A person I have loved, the father of my daughter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I would like to believe in good and evil. I would like to believe that only terrible people do terrible things, but I have done terrible things. I have killed two men, I have let another innocent woman die to further my own cause. I have incited the man in front of me to rape a 15-year-old child. I have cheated on my husband. I have lied, manipulated, put others in danger, cursed the name of God. Context is all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now I know the truth about him the question remains, is the context enough? Can I forgive him? Can I afford not to? The ice on which I skate in this world is wafer thin. Without Nick’s help will I even have a chance of survival, a chance to save Hannah? Probably he will help me whatever I decide to feel about him. He wants me, loves me, I am sure enough of that. If I chose I could use that love to manipulate him, dole out sexual favours like sweets. <em>If you find my daughter I’ll be happy, then I can make </em>you<em> happy…</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>But where would that leave me – empty, twisted inside, another Serena grasping, calculating, thinking of only myself? I am already ashamed of some of the things I have done. If Luke were to see me now, would he even recognise the woman he married? Would Hannah know her mother? For so long in this miserable, Hellish place, Nick was my connection to the person I used to be. With him I didn’t have to hide or lie, I could laugh, cry, rage, touch and be touched, feel like more than just a walking reproductive system. He was my sexuality, my freedom, my humanity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Without him these past few months I have felt my humanity slipping away. I have become a hardened shell inside, an angry husk of a woman with a single purpose to strike out at the regime, to hurt those who have hurt me. I am Emily stabbing Aunt Lydia in the back. I am Ofglen detonating that bomb.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is not who I want to be.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I want to be June.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am not sure who June is anymore.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The silence in the room has gone on for a long time. Nick breaks it by getting up from the table.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Would you like me to take you back to the hospital?” he offers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He picks up his water glass from the table, comes around to take mine. As he reaches for it, I grab his wrist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I slide my hand down his hand, so that our fingers connect. The pad of my thumb is touching the palm of his hand and I rub slow, gentle circles there. Incredible how just holding his hand can affect me more than whole relationships I’ve had with other men. He puts the water glass back on the table, drops to his knees beside me so our faces are level.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“June,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t specify what for, but I understand anyway. He’s sorry for the things he did in the past before he even knew what they meant. He’s sorry for the way the world turned out and the part he played in it. He’s sorry about everything that has happened to me that he couldn’t stop. He’s sorry for letting me down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s the most inadequate apology ever, because how can you apologise away rape and murder? But it is not the apology that matters – he will make his amends later, in different ways – but my response to it. The architects of Gilead thought they were making women powerless. They took away every piece of control they thought we had – money, choice, independence, self-expression, even our literacy. But they left us with one thing, perhaps the greatest power of all – forgiveness. It is a thing that cannot be forced or coerced but only given freely. It is a thing they desperately need that only we have, and we can choose whether to bestow it or not.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Waterford wanted forgiveness in the form of admiration. He wanted women to respect and desire him, despite the sins he had committed against them. Lawrence wanted forgiveness from his wife, her broken mind mended again. Nick just wants a second chance, a chance to make things right. If I don’t grant it, what will he do then? Give up, get dragged further into the mire, do more terrible things? How many of those things would then be my responsibility?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I don’t want to think about that. I want to let it all go and be set free of the past, the bad and the good. When I let Luke go it was hard, but it was also liberating, to no longer be chained to the responsibility of finding my way back to him. To no longer filter all my thoughts and decisions through the lens of being someone’s wife. I can let go of Nick’s past too, take his hand, move forward together in the here and now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>In this place you grab love wherever you can find it.</em> That’s what I told Eden, and despite how it ended for her, I can’t help but still believe that. I can’t help but follow my own advice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s okay,” I tell Nick reaching up to touch his face with my other hand, to trace the curve of his cheek, the softness of his lip. “I just needed to know. I need you to talk to me. No more secrets, ‘kay?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He nods. “I love you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I kiss him in reply. Closed lips, gentle and tender, lingering. A kiss like I mean it. I do mean it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He shudders, lets out a sigh that I think is mostly relief.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We’ve got all night, right?” I ask and he ‘Uh-huhs’ in response, a little confused as to where this is going when I’m still recovering from major abdominal surgery.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’d really like to get some sleep.” I bash him on the arm playfully. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He smirks slightly, standing then helping me to my own feet. “Sure.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Y’know,” I tease, “it’ll be a novelty to get into a Commander’s bed voluntarily.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He skims his hands over my shoulders and down my arms, coming to rest on my elbows. His eyes smoulder and my mouth goes dry. His face is millimetres from mine as he murmurs in my ear, “Hopefully not for long. The novelty.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He helps me out of the heavy jumper and we slide under the covers of the bed together. It takes me a minute to get comfortable, lying on my side facing away from him, knees slightly bent to take the stretch off my abdominal muscles. He arranges himself behind me, our bodies aligned together, one hand resting lightly on my hip, face buried in my hair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I turn my head slightly to whisper to him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You owe me, you know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The hand on my hip grips slightly tighter. “I know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m trusting you to pay it back.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I will. I promise.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I believe you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And as I relax my body, drifting off into sleep, I really do believe him. Tomorrow he will return me to the hospital, and the day after that maybe I will be taken to the local Red Centre. There will likely be another posting, another Commander. It will undoubtedly not be easy, this place always has new horrors around the corner, but I have the strength to deal with them now. I have things I hold in my heart like talismans.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Nichole is safe in Canada - the Waterfords can’t touch her now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I fought the bastards once and I won – more children are safe because of me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am not alone anymore, I have an ally. With Nick’s help I will find Hannah, and I will get her out of here.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Under His <em>fucking</em> Eye.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have taken inspiration from the needle drops in the series and the titles of the works are from songs with strong feminist messages from female artists. Nameless, Faceless is a punk song by Courtney Barnett, which contains the Margaret Atwood quote 'men are scared women will laugh at them, women are scared men will kill them'. Girl on Fire is, of course, by Alicia Keys.<br/>The idea in the fic that forgiveness is the one power left that women still have over men is taken directly from Atwood's novel.<br/>Thank you for reading. All comments gratefully received.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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